Archive for March, 2013

An exercise in futility and vanity

Earth Hour, in spite of government sponsored encouragement, seems to have been a failure.

The head of the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development in Victoria, no less, circulated an edict to all schools to participate in Earth Hour.

We have bureaucracies happily supporting an initiative of the World Wildlife Fund to symbolise “the collective power of individuals, businesses and governments to reduce our impact on the planet”, yet they refuse to learn the real lessons from this latest exercise in vanity and moral preening.

I wonder how many students were directed to the excellent article by Bjorn Lomborg about the futility of Earth Hour. He explains that not only does Earth Hour teach the wrong lessons, it actually increases CO2 emmissions, as the Australian experience confirms.

Lomborg points out the obvious; that we have all been urged to turn off our lights, whilst the important, inconvenient things like the frig, air con, heating or computers are not mentioned. In the meantime, over 1.3 billion humans experience darkness and poverty every night.

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What a surprise this morning. On Insiders we had both Gerard Henderson and Niki Savva along with Laura Tingle and Barry Cassidy.

Could it possibly be that Barry has heard the suggestion going around that the only way to restore balance on the ABC is to have one conservative for every pro ALP commentator, each and every time. Nah! He wouldn’t understand.

Or is it maybe a ruse he has devised to lure back viewers who have abandoned him for the Bolt Report. Nup! He probably doesn’t care.

Or perhaps he realises that Gillard and her party are so on the nose that he should start adjusting to a post election reality and, like Caucus, is worrying about his job. Nah ! He probably feels the election is still too far away to worry about.

In any case, he clearly believes that, if he keeps rooting for the Red Head the way he has been doing with his comrades on Insiders for the past three years, she must surely win anyway.

Let’s see what he does next week. I for one won’t be holding my breath.

When counting both the national broadcaster and the Fairfax press, it leads many people to simply sigh and thank God for The Australian, without which we would already be entering a Chavez style nightmare with virtually no holding of the present government to account. As Brendan O’Neill has pointed out: